


Miles to Go

by maychorian



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Drama, Freeform, Gen, I Don't Even Know, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 08:45:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2645567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maychorian/pseuds/maychorian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I’m not sure what this is. Some weird hybrid between freewriting, meta, and fiction. Anyway, it’s what happens if you listen to <a href="http://www.yourepeat.com/watch?v=IC9HiG5Z-Sg">this</a> on repeat while thinking meditatively about Over the Garden Wall with the intention of trying to write at least 1667 words in an hour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Miles to Go

They don't know where they are, and they don't know where they're going. The woods are dark and dingy, deep, and they have miles to go before they sleep, and promises to keep, promises to keep, promises they did not make, promises they don't remember. The woods whisper and whine and mutter and moan, and sometimes words come from unexpected places. A bird used to be a girl. A horse aspires to be a thief. What doesn't make sense? It is all part of it.

But the woods, the woods, the deep and dingy woods. The wind that sighs, the trees that moan, the leaves that whisper and weep. The woods are alive, of course, of course, and no one can talk like a horse, a horse, the famous Mr. Fred. 

But sometimes the woods talk. Did you know that? Hey, brother? Can you hear the trees? Did I dream that they said hello? Did I only imagine that they told me to run.

Don't believe it, don't listen to a word they say. So says the hero, the teenage boy, the know-it-all in the blue cloak with the brass buttons. He's your big brother and therefore he is amazing and he knows everything, and this is a rock fact, because it is the rock of your life.

But do you hear the trees? Do you, do you?

I think I hear the trees.

And this is the problem, this is the problem of the trees and the wind and the silent sighs of the dark and dingy woods. The problem is not that you hear words in the breeze and moans in the trees. Hearing things is not a problem. You're a child—sometimes you hear things. That's natural. That's imagination. You've always been an imaginative child.

No, the problem is not the hearing. The problem is the possibility that it might be true. Maybe it isn't all in your head. Maybe these words and thoughts and endless sighs are not merely the children of your fertile mind. Maybe they are children of another sort.

The woods, the woods, the dingy woods. The trees are strange, one and all, but some are stranger than others. Some are twisted and strange, not merely strange and twisted. Some are not the usual colors of trees, but are instead a light shade of auburn. A color like blood diluted in water, painted on a wooden surface. A color of fading, of forgetting.

And these trees, these trees like faded bloodstains. Why do the openings within them look like faces?

It is a question that your hero does not answer. Maybe he didn't hear you. Maybe he was occupied with talking to the birds. That's all right, though. You can wander away and ask the trees again. The trees listen.

But why is the tree so sad? It weeps. Black tears, black, down the lines and knots of its faded red face. A finger's touch to the sluggish fluid reveals it to be thick and slick and clingy and dark, so dark, darker than the darkest night. It sticks to the hand and webs between spread fingers in a sludgy web of darkest, deepest black. No reflection on that Stygian surface, for it is black like an absence rather than like a color. 

Hey, brother, did you know? Did you know that water is sweet but blood is thicker?

The saying has been changed, the trees tell you. These days it's meant to be taken as an endorsement of family, the concept that shared blood is worth more than other bonds formed in life. But in the beginning it was a saying between soldiers, comrades born not of the same woman (the womb, the water), but born of shared violence and hardship. Blood is thicker than water.

And what of those who have both water and blood? Do they turn into the trees?

Be quiet, Greg. You don't know what you're talking about.

Is this water even sweet? No, it's too cold. Don't drink it. It will burn in your throat and hurt your chest. Don't let your toes touch it as you cross the stream. Keep to the stones, be nimble and swift as a mountain goat, as a talking horse, and reach the other side without touching the water.

The trees drink the water. Their roots grow deep and hard into the earth. Perhaps one day you will dig a hole and find a person within, one who will need to don new clothes so they can join the harvest celebration. Perhaps the person will be you, but you're not ready yet. It's autumn, still. Winter is coming, but it has not yet arrived.

Brother, will you hear me if I call?

How can I miss you if you never leave?

The woods, the woods, the dark and deeply haunted woods. The paths between the trees are not straight. Go north, the woodsman said, but there is no way to know which direction you're traveling with no sun in the sky, only a moon. 

A moon, moreover, that never changes, always halted in the same phase. It neither wanes nor waxes. It neither shrinks nor grows. Autumn edges on to winter in a slow crawl, marked only by the falling of the leaves and the slow increase of the nip in the air and the eagerness of the frogs to hibernate. And still the moon rides above like a half-open eye, watching over all with sleepy indifference. 

Brother, what if the sky comes falling down?

Don't be silly. Skies don't do that.

But what if they do, here? Here, where animals do sums and tea merchants build grand mansions? Where ghosts live and skeletons dance and good ladies melt into mist at the touch of the night air? What if everything is possible here?

The woods, the woods, the deep and sighing woods. The whispers of the trees have gained in volume. The sad blood-colored trees with their twisted faces and their broken-knuckle roots are both the loudest and the softest. The loudest because their words are almost audible, straining the edge of the space of listening, and you could believe that if you just tried a little harder, you could understand everything they were saying. The softest because their voices are young and high and thin, and easily carried away by the smallest gust of the wind.

And the wind howls. The wind whistles. The wind moans and mutters and whimpers and whines. The wind is a ravenous beast tearing at the garments of travelers and pilgrims, threatening to snatch them away. The wind is a puling infant crying for attention, lurking under the eaves of ramshackle houses and putting its lips to the knots in the walls to beg and cry and plead for attention.

Brother, do you still believe in love? You wonder.

Of course I do. I never stopped.

Stick a candy to the shell of a black turtle, watch it wander. Follow the path. Black turtles are delicacies prized by many in the woods, picked up on the path for a convenient snack or sheltered in barrels and baskets for keeping until they ripen. The harvest is a time of ripening, of course. It always is. You aren't ready yet, says the maiden of the pumpkins. You're here too early. But we'll see you soon.

And so autumn crawls along in its endless pilgrimage toward winter, and you and your brother ripen. You drink tea and eat heavy meals in taverns. You perform music on a ferry and sing impromptu ditties with whomever happens to be near. You walk and you wander and you search for your home, and you listen to the trees, but you can never quite hear what they're saying. 

When you can hear them, for certain and for surety, perhaps that will be the end of the journey. 

Hey, brother, do you see the road ahead? Is it endless? Will we ever find a closing to this book?

Of course we will. 

What if we're far from home?

We just have to keep going, that's all, that's all, keep going, keep walking, keep moving through the woods.

And now, now at last, winter has come. The harvest has come to a close. The final ripening has occurred, and the fruit is ready to pluck. The lost children are ready to forget where they belong. The trees are ready to be understood. The Beast is ready to claim his own.

Make a wish upon a star. Anything is possible here, especially for the pure of heart, for purity is magic in a world as dark and deep and dingy as these woods. So make your wish. Give yourself a home among the trees. You are welcome here.

The wish is made. The course is set. The child is twined in branches the color of diluted blood, soon to become fuel for the heart of the monster that rules the unknown. 

Hey, brother, will you remember me? 

Of course I will, because I'm not going anywhere without you. There's nothing in this world I wouldn't do to take you with me.

And now indeed does the sky come falling down. For you and for your brother and for the world. And here is upheaval, here is chaos, here is a bright and burning fire, followed by the snuffing of a lantern. Here is the breaking of branches and the weeping of a teenage boy who used to know it all.

You wake to cold and noise. You wake to warmth and quiet. You wake, at long last, beyond the woods.

The woods, the woods... What were they? Dark and dingy and deep, and fading now like a misremembered dream. There are no promises to keep, no miles to go before you sleep. 

You wake and laugh, and your brother laughs with you.

Hey, brother, do you still believe in one another?

Of course I do. That's something we'll never lose at all.


End file.
